“When was the last time a Lutheran liturgy moved someone -just one person- the way Christ’s words moved thousands?”

This poor, miserable, damnable, ex-atheist is moved by the “crusty old” liturgy, because it delivers Christ’s words. In the conservative liturgy, which some say is not relevant today, I find God coming to me with His divine gifts. I receive His word, forgiveness, and renewal.

The boring, old, conservative liturgy is a precious gem. From it I have learned what it means to be not only a Lutheran, but a Christian.

Since many have answered well (and long), I will just add this one note: The purpose of the parables was not to make the Gospel more relevant and understandable. On the contrary, the parables were hidden sayings. He spoke in parables, “that seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand.” In other words, parables were not object lessons or illustrations in the ordinary, modern sense. They were more like cryptic riddles that hid the truth.

It is an honor to be considered your brother in the faith. Your comments are quite godly.

I was away from the computer yesterday and am just now getting a chance to respond to Wednesday’s comments. I will have something up today.

Pastor Rossow

Jesse,

I do understand the liturgy in question to be referred to as the “Divine Liturgy”, which is also understood to be “inerrant”, correct me if I’m wrong.

Yes, we call it the “Divine Service”, but in no way is it “inerrant”. The bible is inerrant. The liturgy was created over generations (as others have said). It was not created by Martin Luther but the basic form used by many churches today. There were small changes to it done when LSB came out with 5 settings of the liturgy, and lots of people complained, but most are accepting of the changes — many of the changes went back to the older form.

I was in Choir tonight, and the following song was very moving to me and relevant to this discussion. This is song #796 from Lutheran Service Book; the song is copyright 1972. This will be our opening hymn this Sunday.

When in our music God is glorified
And adoration leaves no room for pride
It is as though the whole creation cried; (alleluia)

How often, making music, we have found
A new dimension in the world of sound
As worship moved us to a more profound (alleluia)

So has the Church, in liturgy and song,
In faith and love, through centuries of wrong,
Borne witness to the truth in every tongue; (alleluia)

And did not Jesus sing a psalm that night
When utmost evil strove against the light?
Then let us sing, for whom He won the fight (alleluia)

Let ev’ry instrument be tuned for praise!
Let all rejoice who have a voice to raise!
And may God give us faith to sing always; (alleluia)

Thanks again for taking the time to respond to my posting, as well as that of Pastor Rossow. I won’t presume to answer for him and I’m looking forward to a more learned response than I can manage, but I’ll offer the following:

I’m afraid I can’t agree with the pre-supposed positions you bring to the discussion. First, the idea that Christ communicated clearly with his “audience” strikes me as off the mark. My recollection of several Gospel accounts of Christ’s sermons/teachings is that afterwards he would often ask the disciples if they understood his message which he then had to explain to them, or they often followed, without prompting, by asking that most Lutheran of questions “what does this mean?.” It’s not that his teachings were unclear or obscure so much as the people receiving the word, stuck in their sinful nature, were not predisposed to accept and understand it. He didn’t water down or sugar coat the message to make it easier for them to understand. Perhaps your perception of the traditional liturgy/hymnody as being irrelevant, limiting or obscure is more about your perception than it is about the liturgy. The notion that the traditional worship form, liturgy and music are irrelevant, limiting or obfuscational, either by design or social construct is not only completely wrong, it’s insulting. The correlation between Luther translating the scriptures and mass into common German and your desire for rewriting the service in more currently socially acceptable musical forms doesn’t hold up either. Luther’s purpose was to translate it into a language the laity could understand so they could ask “what does this mean?”, and gain understanding of their faith, not to dumb it down so that there would be no point in even asking the question.

The current/traditional form is translated into as many languages as I can think of. I’m not aware of anyone who is restricted from the opportunity to partake of the Divine Service and ask “what does this mean?” nor am I aware of any Pastors who would refuse to entertain the question and explain the answer. Speaking for myself and most people I know, the traditional music styles are absolutely relevant, mostly easy to sing (except that darn nunc dimitus), and easy to remember, allowing one to contemplate the word through singing/praying the liturgy outside of the worship service.

As someone whose vocation is marketing, you may already know this, but if not, I would encourage you to do some research on a branch of science called “sentics.” Sentics, as it relates to music, (the tones, the melodic intervals. etc.) reveals that music is never neutral or messageless. The combination of intervals, the arrangement of a melodic line, and all other musical components, send messages something akin subliminal advertisement. And it is not simply a matter of culture. Recognition of this goes back to the ancient Greeks who distinguished between “Apollonian” music, which appealed to the mind, the will, and the higher things of human existence, i.e., intellect, and “Dyonisian” music, which appealed to the emotions and the baser things of life. In his book, The Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche discusses these issues and their effect on the culture of 19th century Romanticism, which was awash in the hyper-subjectivism that was typical of Dyonisian music; Richard Wagner, just as an example. These are things we instinctively “get.” Consider how the music of a Lutheran chorale effects the listener (just the music) compared to the music of 18th and 19th century revivalism, as revisited in Billy Graham crusades and other similar experiences. It should come as no surprise that through an application of sentics it has been found that music associated with churches with a liturgical tradition is almost exclusively “Apollonian” while music associated with non-liturgical traditions (Methobapticostal) is almost exclusively ” Dyonisian.” To use a Lutheran figure of speech, there is some music you just cannot baptize. (thanks to Rev. Kim L. Scharff of Trinity Lutheran Church in Norborne , Missouri , from whom I mostly stole this)

While I believe you are correct in your assertion that the actual music style is not prescribed, and can be considered as adiophora, I would caution you to consider where the kind of changes you are advocating may lead. I return to my position about the definition of Worship, as it appears to be fundamentally different from your “Worship and Praise” which, as I’ve stated in my previous postings, I believe should be done in an atmosphere of reverence and awe, not rock and roll. This is the essence of the problem I have with the more catchy methobapticostal (just love that word!) praise band hymnody. If I’m tapping my foot, bobbing my head or moving to the tune, pretty soon I’m distracted from worshipping, and it’s not about receiving the word and gifts of the spirit, it becomes about what I’m doing, even if it’s just something as innocuous (Sp?) as enjoying the music. Simply put “Dyonisian” forms of music distract us from what we are there for, and make worship about what we’re doing, rather than what God is doing for us.

In the 1830′s Charles Finney said: “Without new measures it is impossible that the Church should succeed in gaining the attention of the world to religion. There are so many exciting subjects constantly brought before the public mind, such a running to and fro, so many that cry ‘Lo here!’ and ‘Lo there!’ that the Church cannot maintain her ground without sufficient novelty in measures, to get the public ear.” (Charles Grandison Finney, Revival Lectures ( Grand Rapids : Flemming H. Revell, n.d.), 309.) In the 1830′s! Interestingly, this preceded the formation of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, which grew and flourished, even using the liturgy and hymnody that you find irrelevant and outdated, as did Mr. Grandison 170 years ago. It kind of belies the point that it is the music and form that is limiting the work of the Holy Spirit.

Finally, you are correct that the Holy Spirit can and does work among other more heterodox denominations “despite their errant ways,” but what is to be gained by knowingly introducing error? We are Lutherans. It’s who we are and where we stand. We can do no other.

Eric Ramer

I commend to you the comments in answer to your first comment — they answer some of the concerns you raise in your second.

You seem to misunderstand what the Divine Service is, what its purpose is.

It is not primarily something we do. Divine Service is God serving us Word and Sacrament. God is doing, we are receiving.

I infer from your comments that you think the moving of the Holy Spirit is determined by feelings. If we can’t get past this error dialog is futile.

The liturgy is not a barrier, stubborn hearts are. The liturgy is not outdated or irrelevant — it presents the Gospel clearly and concisely without room for individualistic notions of “relevance”.

The words of the liturgy, and for that matter the musical setting, should show uniformity of doctrine among believers. We act the same because we ARE the same — one in Christ.

Eric (#9), I am also a layman with limited theological training and I appreciate your eloquent response. I am in fact a marketer by formal education and by profession, which leads me to address your concern for the language I used in my comment. While identified almost exclusively with profit-seeking corporations, marketing boils down simply to the equation of human communication; i.e., there is a transmitter and a receiver. Allow me to explain what I intended to communicate.

Take, for example, the conversation we’re having right now. My mind is formulating an idea and wrapping that idea in language, while my fingers are capturing the language in type. Your eyes are viewing exactly the type I transmit to you, and your brain is decoding the language back into ideas. So we have a 5 stage process (by the way, this is also true of all non-verbal communication): idea > language choice > transmission media > receiver > interpretation. Because I intend to express my ideas only to you, you are my audience. Because you are only one person, you are a very small (niche) audience. With context clues (the purpose of this conversation, this website, its historical context, and what little else I know about you from your post) I would be wise to choose the first three of those stages deliberately, so that you are most likely to accurately execute the final two stages and capture the desired idea.

Jesus did exactly that by teaching heavenly Truth in parables. Not only did he choose language familiar to his audience, but also subject matter and social contexts familiar to his audience; communication media that they were most likely to receive and interpret accurately. My point was that liturgical worship (in my experience) makes very shallow (if any) consideration for the contemporary context of its audience. In this way, liturgy fails to follow Christ’s example of communicating heavenly Truth – reaching into the lives of his audience with relevance.

I suspected it was a misstep when I used terms like “niche market” and “audience” in my post above because my understanding of those terms was different from yours, therefore ineffectively communicating my point. Ironically enough, your response has served as opportunity for me to prove it. The Message that liturgy carries is far too crucial to be allowed to be obscured by its antiquated and irrelevant media of delivery, let alone steadfastly obscured.

Pastor Rossow (#11), you have clarified several other points of miscommunication for which I am responsible – many thanks to you. The first is this:

No on has claimed divine authorship of the liturgy.

Perhaps I’m thicker than the average bear, but I do understand the liturgy in question to be referred to as the “Divine Liturgy”, which is also understood to be “inerrant”, correct me if I’m wrong. You (and others) clarified the difference between liturgical style and liturgical content. Liturgical Lutheran content is strictly scriptural and I 100% agree that scripture is the sole reliable source for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness (divine and inerrant). However, I think liturgical style has been the greatest source of my frustrations in the traditional Lutheran church (hence my certain ethnic musical association, also mentioned by Eric in #4), because things like order of worship, chanting, hymnody (which is a word I’ve never seen before yesterday) and musical style are entirely social constructs. They were social constructs in ancient times, in Luther’s time, and in our time today. How can we claim the inerrant nature of any of these things? They were not laid out in scripture as instructions for us. What makes an ancient or medieval style more worthy than a contemporary style? What is the purpose of trapping scripture’s crucial message of Truth in irrelevant, outdated social media that acts as a barrier between the message and its audience?

I am a huge fan of Martin Luther and his story of church reformation was the unadulterated work of God. God most certainly used him to break the message of Truth free from the established religious hypocrites, back into the language of the people – back into relevance for the desperate masses for whom it was always intended. I don’t know how happy Martin would be with a church under his very name that chooses, steadfastly, to limit the transmission of the Truth for which he fought so radically by winnowing away the otherwise available options for its transmission. We are not called to be of the world, but we are called to be in the world. So who are we to be cloistered away, poo-pooing the worship and outreach of the active majority of Christ’s body while their hands heal and hearts feel and feet walk – constantly striving to live into Jesus’ example?

Sure, the Lutheran church is theoretically and rhetorically accepting, but in practice it has placed far too many barriers between it and the world it was commissioned to reach, all in the name of preventing error from entering worship. My reference to David merely served as one example where genuine worship and praise to the Lord existed outside the Lutheran liturgy – to prove that it’s possible. Not only that, but to remind us all that humanity has been worshiping our Creator God for millennia previous to liturgy’s conception, and that the Holy Spirit is alive and well among the believers who worship daily and weekly without it, despite their errant ways.

I assume your reference to I Corinthians points to the second half of chapter 14. Here Paul encourages orderly worship so that those led by the Spirit to speak or prophesy can be heard one at a time, allowing those in attendance to receive the message. Again, the Paul’s point is on effective delivery of the message to its audience. Whether by oration, gregorian chant, ancient hymn, or set to rock and roll music, Paul simply advises the clear communication of the Gospel message. If I missed it, please point out the scripture that infers a preference of one order of worship over another, or one style of delivery over another.

I have many more thoughts on your collective responses, but it’s really late here on eastern time. I hope to post more later, specifically on these subjects:

–“How do I a sinner stand before a holy God?”
–”You are more interested in ‘moving’ people than having sins forgiven.” (directly related to the first)
–”The Spirit is found where Christ’s word is preached and the sacraments are administered according to Christ’s command.” (By virtue of the fact that this takes on more forms than merely the Lutheran liturgy, the steadfast denial of those other forms intentionally limits the media by which the Spirit may choose to move. The Spirit is active and dynamic – meeting us in our hearts – living.)

“I’m gathering here that the Lutheran divine liturgy is intended to serve a very different purpose than praise and worship – to serve strictly as a tool for serving up scripture and sacrament, rather than to facilitate the spiritual or emotional connection between Christ and his body, or even among the members of that body.”

No, “scripture and sacrament” IS “the connection between Christ and his body” and “among the members of that body.”

Everything else is mysticism.

TW